


One hundred years is a long time to sleep through

by OctarineTiger



Series: Legend of Zelda but make it...something. [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Being a hero is hard work, Don't be afraid to ask me to tag, Gen, King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule (mentioned) - Freeform, Link is tired, POV Second Person, References to Depression, Zelda (Mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27187204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctarineTiger/pseuds/OctarineTiger
Summary: It was more difficult than you'd admit, waking up after one hundred years of sleep. The fact that you had missed such a great amount of time...the prospect that anyone you could have known was more than likely dead...
Series: Legend of Zelda but make it...something. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984585
Kudos: 4





	One hundred years is a long time to sleep through

It was more difficult than you'd admit, waking up after one hundred years of sleep. The fact that you had missed such a great amount of time...the prospect that anyone you could have known was more than likely dead...

Of course, even if they were alive, you wouldn't have remembered them anyway. That was probably the hardest part. All you had left were fragments of a life once led, fragments of a life long forgotten. The person you might have been was long gone, died as you should have all those years ago.

"Save Zelda, save Hyrule."

Save the princess you didn't know, the home you weren't sure was yours anymore. Save the friends you couldn't remember, and the people who called you a hero.

A hero.

As if.

Goddess, it was hard. Hard to see the spirits of the friends you were supposed to know, to see the recognition in their eyes, and to feel nothing but guilt and uncertainty and regret. The powers they passed on to you, familiar but not. The powers you...never mind. Don't think about it. 

You didn't think about a lot of things these days.

You almost wish you hadn't woken up at all. Wish you could have just stayed asleep, blissfully ignorant to the world. The burden of simply _being_ was too much. Just because you had been born with the courage of a hero before you, and so he had been born with the courage of heroes before him, you were destined to fight an evil who had come back time and time again.

The darkness sealing sword chose you, sealed your fate. The same sword that had refused to let you wield it until you were worthy.

And so you were unworthy.

Unworthy and tired.

By the Goddess you were tired. You had trekked across Hyrule a thousand times over to prove you were worthy. You had freed the champions. You had killed monsters again and again, and when they came back you did it one more time. You had climbed mountains and swam rivers, snuck through fields of flowers, rested in forests, ducked into ruins of villages during rainstorms. You had stolen wood from stables, leaving ores and rupees in their place, stolen wood to make fires far away from anyone else. You had stared at the sides of bridges, wondering how far down it was and whether or not you could unfurl your paraglider fast enough to catch your fall. You had cried late at night where no one could hear you, shed tears for the life you would never live with the friends you couldn't remember, cried as the burden placed upon your shoulders suffocated you, crushed you, sapped you of your strength. 

You proved yourself worthy.

You defeated Ganon. Drove It from the castle, freeing Zelda and all of Hyrule from It's evil.

She cried when she saw you. The recognition-always the recognition-in her eyes pained you. It pained you because you had grown to resent her after all those months. Grew to resent her and her father and everyone who had expected you-demanded you to save them, as all the heroes had done.

Maybe in your other life, you had been friends, but no more. She told you, you with no memories, no worth. Spoke to you in your slumber and told you to save her, to save Hyrule from the evil she had been staving off for a hundred years because it had to be you.

It was always you.

It was always you and by the great Goddess Hylia you were _tired_.

You were tired, but your task was never done. Time and time again you would be reborn with the same courage, same name, same mission. Time and time again.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this totally canon compliant? No. But hey, I like exploring the space, and Link leaves a lot of room for interpretation, so. ANYway, I loved playing Breath of the Wild and am SO excited for the second one hehe. I'm curious to see what they do with it. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed, or at least got something out of, reading this.


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